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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23735998">flickers</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExasperantMadman/pseuds/ExasperantMadman'>ExasperantMadman</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Apex Legends (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood, Caustic being Caustic, Comfort, Death, Needles, Other, Revenant being his usual self, Some juicy inner turmoil and existential dread, but also being a frightening grandparent, with a slice of something else</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:35:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,838</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23735998</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExasperantMadman/pseuds/ExasperantMadman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>His own golden eyes stare back, lost in that one single molten drop of gold, lost in that indiscernible look that seems to convey so many foreign emotions to him. </p><p> </p><hr/><p>After a particularly gruesome match, Bloodhound finds themselves in the poorest of conditions they've been in a while. </p><p>Revenant watches, musing on the events.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bloodhound/Revenant (Apex Legends)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>73</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>flickers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/eymelee/gifts">eymelee</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for a prompt challenge done with <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/eymelee/pseuds/eymelee"> eymelee </a>, please go ahead and read they're own incredible work!</p><p>I love,,, this pair...</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>How many times has he been here before? </p><p>The dropship rattles and churns around them, but it's a song they've heard countless times already; besides, who was he to fear if they crashed? He who laughs in the face of death and delivers it equally to sinners and saints alike. </p><p>His newly re-calibrated limb catches the ship's poor lighting on its metallic carcass. Flickers of lights dance across the red paint and subsequently die upon hitting the splashes of blood still coating the metal. </p><p>Idly, he watches his cybernetic digits shift into his preferred weapon, wrist twitching and fingers fusing into the deadliest blade ever created. The blood splotches that seemed so randomly splattered before, now come together like the pieces of a bloody jigsaw. His orbs fixate on it - so familiar in its place that it seems more like a skin upon his skeletal frame.</p><p>A grumbled curse resounds across the metallic walls of the ship. Caustic coughs and re-tightens his grip on his worktable. His notes lay in disarray over the surface, many of them now scattered across the floor. As if on cue, more fall over when the ship jostles and bumps them around. </p><p>Revenant watches the old man, studying his sickish skin and the blood coating his beard. They don't lock eyes, no. Caustic never looks at him, for everyone is beneath his intellect. For an old skin bag on the brink of expiration, he holds himself with the highest regard and the strongest resilience through his perverted experiments. </p><p>And Revenant respects that. </p><p>Although he remains unmoving from his crouched position on top of the supply crates, his eyes do shift across the room - to the only other living enigma besides the noxious trapper. </p><p>Bloodhound is silent as ever, their back turned to him so that Revenant's eyes can do nothing but burn holes into the dirtied fabric of their parka. Their unmoving and calm exterior could fool anyone into thinking everything was under control, but they couldn't fool Hammond's ex-best stalker. </p><p>Instinctively he skitters closer, the shadows hiding his steps and cloaking his form. His audio receptors pick up the other's strained breathing through the borrowed mask, then something more. A conversation with their pet? A song? A prayer to their Allfather? </p><p>With the methodical grace of a killing machine, Revenant creeps closer to Bloodhound's corner of the ship. He doesn't have to sneak and skulk around - the ship is vacant but for the three of them, the victors of today's match. But what's the fun in simply walking up to your teammates? Better to scar them for life and remind them that death awaits in their meager shadows. </p><p>(Mirage was sure to never forget that one.)</p><p>But somehow, like they always seem to be aware of his presence, Bloodhound senses him. And when they turn to regard him, Revenant finds himself petrified in their crouch, caught nearby Caustic's station. </p><p>One goggle is as impenetrable as always, impossible to read - and yet through the cracks in the other, Bloodhound's golden iris cuts through him like the blade of their ancestors. </p><p>His own golden eyes stare back, lost in that one single molten drop of gold, lost in that indiscernible look that seems to convey so many foreign emotions to him. </p><p>
  <i> Bloodhound stares at him, their bloodshot eye frantically running across his bullethole ridden frame. He can't help but stare back as he recharges his shields, staring at the Hound beneath, bleeding their life away. </i>
</p><p>The gears in his head turn, replaying the memory with the simplicity of one taking in a breath of fresh air. </p><p>Hound's scrutinizing gaze never leaves his face, but somehow it feels like they've already studied their whole being inside and out. </p><p>How do they do it? How does nothing escape their thorough scan?</p><p>A rhythmic patting across a padded surface brings his attention to the other's hand, nestled at their side. A clear invitation for him to join them into their quarters. At once, Revenant is straight as an arrow, attention piqued as he saunters into one of the few spaces on the dropship he hadn't stepped in yet. But he's courteous of course, he doesn't stare at the Hound's belongings, merely glancing once to memorize the room for him to replay later. Their corvid watches them from its cage, surprisingly silent and tame, unlike when it is in the presence of the insufferable MARVN or the other skin bags.</p><p>
  <i> A bird flies overhead, an omen of death. It watches its master fight, and lose. Revenant follows Bloodhound’s tracks, retracing the steps they so eagerly pursued. </i>
</p><p>Bloodhound sighs in pain, fiddling with the borrowed gas mask they seem to struggle to properly fit over their face - but it will have to do for now. </p><p>
  <i> Mouth wide open, spewing blood with every shallow breath. </i>
</p><p>His fingers twitch impatiently. Part of Revenant wants to fit the mask into place, hold it together himself if it means it's going to stay affixed; the other part wants to shove it through the skull, but he refrains from injuring his teammates post-victory; he's got <i> some </i> standards after all. </p><p>Caustic coughs from his work station, a wretched one that's sure to have any sensible person worry over the scientist’s well-being. But then again, he wasn't one to care, nor was Caustic one willing to concern himself with other's views of him. His sensors pick up the change in inflection in Bloodhound's tone, their voice sounding foreign for once without their usual filters to distort it. He doesn't bother to listen much into his teammates’ bickering, but he does pick up the stern edge in Caustic's voice, telling the hunter to lay down and rest, to keep his mask until they're able to seek advanced medical help. </p><p>
  <i> "You are fortunate we are on the same team," Caustic sneers, but the concern is visible on his face through his murky visor. A needle is jabbed into the Hound, but even while Caustic holds them together and mends their fatal wounds, Revenant hears the rattling breaths leaving the other's punctured lungs and knows. A measly needle isn't going to mend a full Mastiff shot to the neck and chest. </i>
</p><p>Hound's hand shoots to their chest, a short series of wet coughs leaving them breathless. </p><p>Revenant stares with some disinterest, unimpressed by a scene he's seen so many times before in past contracts. </p><p>Nevertheless, he sinks into the spot at their side, silent as a ghost. </p><p>He painstakingly counts the seconds trickling by the longer he rests there. The flight back home is long and rough, and he often finds himself idling the time away in the shadows. But now, as he sits around the candles burning in Bloodhound's quarters, he finds himself hyper-aware of the slow passage of time. </p><p>
  <i> Time seems to slow almost to a stop. Caustic's gas hisses through the room while the man prowls and waits akin to a viper ready to strike from the noxious fumes. Bangalore gives her last silenced breath, claimed by the vapors. Wraith lurks on top of the house, waiting for the air to clear before she and the bamboozling idiot that got them into this mess can descent upon them in a flurry of bullets. But he waits. He waits, cloaked in the shadow of the staircase and by the gaseous veil obscuring his risen totem. He waits, listening to the tracker's breaths, watching them pull a needle from their pocket from across the room. It gives him purpose, watching the injection connect with their weakened flesh, and hearing Caustic's Peacekeeper shoot across the room and hit its target. </i>
</p><p>
  
  Warm shadows cast across his form, painting death into a lovely hue. Bloodhound's warmth is a strange weight next to him; even stranger when he finds that he's unbothered by it. His eyes shift, stealing a glance at his side while his head remains terrifyingly still. Unfortunately, he's staring at the part still hidden by the remainder of their goggles; he finds that rather annoying, up until the other seemingly leans further into his weight. He's about to deliver one of his biting remarks at the other's uncharacteristic sloppiness, but he reminds himself that to err is human, and skin bags are but a poorly designed machine, prone to breakage. Some consideration and respects were to be given to someone who survived so many impressive feats - and, well, he was technically a guest politely invited to share the space of someone he held some admiration to, he ought to show some respect, regardless. 
  
</p><p>
  <i>"I've been downed," Caustic's pained voice grunts through his earpiece, a mere seconds after he finished pummelling Mirage into the ground with his own bloody fists. Wraith looks for him while he skitters across the floor, out of ammo but not unarmed. He climbs the wall and sinks his claws into it, waiting for the other to pass underneath the threshold while his arm twists and forms into his deadliest weapon. But he's caught off guard when Wraith appears into existence on the other side of the room into a flash of white and void, gun drawn into her hands. He launches himself at his target with a deathly howl, just as her gun fires; just as a beastly cry sounds from the other side of the house. </i>
   
</p><p>
  
    A growl slithers past his metal plates, as something shorts inside his casing. He'll need to get replacement parts for the holes littering his integument, but he should fiddle with his system more than anything when he gets back to his ruined quarters. 
 
</p><p>
  
    Though Hammond's programming failed with time, he still finds traces of it slipping through the simulacrum; whispers of past lives he doesn't remember living. 
  
</p><p>
  
  The weight at his side is foreign but somewhat familiar. Who was it again? 
  
</p><p>
  
   Bloodhound shifts in their tired state, nearly sliding into his lap, barely catching themselves on his shoulder plate. When they eventually succumb to restless dreams, Revenant allows them to fall back into his personal space, not without catching Caustic's death glare from across the room and the sound of his knuckles cracking in a clear threat. He finds himself the one avoiding eye contact this time, but he respects both individuals enough to permit this intrusion.
 
</p><p>
  
  As he stares at the cracks in the other's gear, listening to their ragged breathing, inspecting the worn and damaged tissue littering their frame, Revenant replays their victory again; the sound of the sentinel shot ending Wraith's life as she towered above him still rings fresh in his receptors. 
  
</p><p>
  
    He turns to look at Bloodhound in his memory, but.. someone else gasps and pants in their place. Someone from another life? 

</p><p>
  
  The victory is announced over the speakers, claiming him to be the winner but they call out different names; he helps someone else off the ground.
 
</p><p>
 
 Flickers of past lives inundate his system, while the simulacrum struggles to uphold his purpose <i> (what was his purpose?)</i>. 
  
</p><p>

   How many times has he been here before?
  
</p><p>
 The dropship rattles and churns around them-.
  
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>For context: Bloodhound follows after the last squad in Swamps, gets themselves blasted in the face by a full Mastiff shot. They're badly injured, mask broken and air filter completely destroyed (as well as their lungs probably rip). As a result, Caustic lends them their own mask to aid in their breathing while the whole situation blows over and they can receive proper medical help. </p><p>aaaaaaa thanks for reading and thank you <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/eymelee/pseuds/eymelee"> eymelee </a> for playing duos with me and absolutely dominating as revhound and ABSOLUTELY fueling this need to write for them</p></blockquote></div></div>
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